Sculptures on the Tips of Lead Pencils

This past weekend Les and I went to Tucson to visit the Miniature Museum. Or more accurately, we went to The Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures. OMG! The museum exceeded all of our expectations. The main reason for our visit was to Oooh and Ahh over the dollhouse miniatures, but there was more, MUCH more than just that. I’m going to do another post on what else we saw, but first, I want to share the special exhibit with you.

The temporary exhibit showcased carvings on the tips of lead pencils. Both Les and I have marveled in the past at these mini works of art. “How do they do that?”, has been a recurring question in our conversations about different artisans. Not ones to look ahead to see what we are getting ourselves into (LOL), we were surprised to find out that the special exhibit was on a subject that has fascinated us for so long. The exhibit features over thirty micro mini sculptures done by three different artists.

I’m excited to share some of the photos that we took of the sculptures as well as a video link that shows how they do that. Amazing! (The really good photo above is from the museum’s site of course, but we did our best.)

Dalton Ghetti is a favorite of mine because of the way he makes the entire pencil a part of the art sculpture. I like the look of the peeling paint and the broken pencil wood. The little studs that he adds to the sides of the pencils set the sculpture apart for me.

Can you see that the thread actually goes through a teeny little hole in the needle?

Ghetti is a carpenter and does not sell his pencil sculptures. He says that he considers pencil sculpting a hobby and does not want to take the relaxation out of it. In a way, that is a shame. But in another way, I can completely understand him wanting to keep the “sales” out of his relaxation hobby.

PS: this is what we had to drive through to get home from Tucson: High wind and a ton of dust. We couldn’t even see scenery off to the sides of the road.